The Finer The Line
by rucabear
Summary: Snow's eyes flew open as a cloud of dust filled the room. Through the rubble of the toppled wall stepped Aidan and the Cabal Knights. His fists were aflame. She dared to compare him to a knight-in-shining-armor saving his princess, but then her blood-deprived brain reminded her that he wasn't any type of hero./There's a fine line between love and hate./next gen/full summary inside
1. TFTL: The Introduction

**Summary one: What if the Winx's sons fell in love with the Trix's, Diaspro's, Chimera's, and Mitzi's daughters? Forbidden love, right? But what if these daughters decided to fight crime as the Magix Club? And what if these sons were evil warlocks? When a worse villain comes after the Magix Club, will the boys put aside their prejudice and admit that there's a fine line between love and hate?**

 **Summary two: The Winx Club all grow up and each have a goody-two-shoes daughters at the exact same time. Shocker. Well, this story isn't about them; this is about their sons, the Cabal Knights. They're evil warlocks and they love tormenting the squeaky clean daughters of the Trix, Diapsro, Chimera, and Mitzi (a.k.a. The Magix Club). But when a bigger, badder villain threatens the girls, can the boys put aside their prejudice and admit that something stronger than hate runs between them?**

* * *

 _'Forgive us now for what we've done_

 _It started out as a bit of fun'_

 _\- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds_

Aidan rolled his eyes. He was doing a lot of that these days.

"Mom, I am not going to Red Fountain, okay? I'm not going to switch schools just to be a hero."

Bloom huffed angrily at her son, crossing her arms and glaring at the redheaded boy.

"Your father went to Red Fountain and he loved it!" she said.

"Well, he didn't have magic powers," Aidan argued, waving his hand and watching as fire blossomed from his fingertips.

"Okay, well, my good friend Nabu has a school for wizards and-"

"I am not going to Darkwin Academy for Wizarding Ways," he said finally. "There is no way you can get me to go to that goody-two-shoes wizard school. I've made up my mind."

Bloom groaned in frustration and said, "Why couldn't you have picked anything but Murmire?"

Aidan shrugged, summoning a portal and grabbing his suitcase. They had this argument every year before school started and she had just never been able to accept it.

"I'm a warlock, Mom," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "I hope you can understand."

With that, Aidan stepped through the portal, leaving his life as a prince of Eraklyon behind.

The fifteen-year-old sighed as he reached the other side of the portal and took in the sight of the dark, towering spires of the school he had come to call home. It was his second year going to Murmire's School of the Ancient Arts (a.k.a. dark magic) and he was once again sharing a dorm room with his five best friends. Speaking of...

"Aidan!"

He turned just in time to be barreled over by a ball of blond energy. Aidan disentangled himself from the enthusiastic prince and took a step back so he could breathe.

"Hey, Ray," Aidan greeted, laughing. "How's it going?"

"Same old, same old," the sunburnt warlock said, slinging an arm around Aidan's neck and turning to survey the crowd of students entering the school. "Look at all these new kids! Hey, check this out."

He stuck out his foot, tripping a freshmen warlock who tumbled to the ground and spilled his stuff everywhere. The two sophomores laughed. Murmire was definitely not a place for the thin-skinned or the kind-hearted. Speaking of...

"Oh, Aidan, look! Look!" Ray exclaimed as his excited brown eyes caught sight of something else. The vivacious blond dragged his tolerant friend away from the poor freshman warlock and towards a shaded tree off to the side of the courtyard. "It's Thorn and Marin!"

The two warlocks made their way over to their friends, shoving through the crowd and ignoring all the nasty looks they got.

"Where have you been? You went, like, radio silent for two months," Aidan asked Thorn.

His guyliner-ed friend replied, "Mom had me working the apothecary all summer because Ivy's backpacking across Lynphea with Sirena and Clover's still too young."

"Oh, yeah," Marin remembered, "Sirena told me about that. I'm just glad she was out of the castle. Then I didn't have to deal with her swooning over Ivy all over the palace. Like, I'm happy for her, but it's been non-stop talk about that nature fairy since they started dating. Even River and Ridge are getting sick of it."

"Ivy isn't any better," Thorn told the water warlock. "Everything is 'Sirena this' and 'Sirena that.' The worst part is, Clover joins in so then they're both swooning over Sirena. It's gotten to the point where I sleep in the old treehouse out back just to get away from all the lovey-dovey talk."

"Dudes, you guys could have stayed with me on Eraklyon," Aidan offered. "The palace is definitely being big enough and with Rory studying on Earth, the place is entirely sister-free."

Just then, a hovercraft pulled up in front of the four boys. The door opened and out stepped a purple-haired woman with a pixie cut and her face close to a tablet. Without looking up, she called into the hovercraft, "Electro! We're going to be late! Come on!"

"Coming, Mom!" a male voice groaned from the inside.

Out stepped a very tall, _very pale_ teenager with green glasses and stiff, Captain America style, orange hair. He also had his face shoved in a tablet.

"Electro!" Ray called, making the ginger look up from his screen. His face was by default an apathetic mask.

"Hey, guys," he answered coolly, making his way over to the tree.

His mother looked up from her screen too and grinned, waving at us as she noticed the other warlocks. "Hi, boys! Tell your mothers I say hello!"

"Sure thing, Mrs. Tecna," Aidan answered as the technology fairy climbed back into the hovercraft and flew away.

Electro pulled his tablet back out the second his mother was gone. Aidan and Thorn shared a look over Ray's head as he chattered with Marin about their summers.

"Where's Reed?" Aidan asked his brunette best friend. Thorn just shrugged. "He's always late," Aidan continued. "I mean, I know Melody is farther from Magix than the other realms, but this is a bit ridiculous."

Just as he was saying that, a portal appeared in front of them and out of it hopped a small boy with magenta Bieber cut, clunky black headphones, and a distant look in his narrow dark eyes.

"Sorry, guys," Reed said as he pulled a suitcase through the portal. "My mom wanted to take pictures. I don't know why." The other boys snickered as the quiet boy blushed a bright red and muttered, "Shut up."

"We better head inside," Aidan said, pointing towards the large double doors that lead to Murmire's main hall. The other five nodded and followed him inside.

They sat down in the large auditorium for the beginning of the year speech that no one listened to because they were all warlocks so _who cares?_ It wasn't until the end that Aidan zoned in.

"All warlocks are joined together in teams of six, subteams of three. You will live together, train together, and work together throughout the school year. You are also assigned to a team of fairies from Alfea in your same year who you will train against in order to practice for the real world. Fairy teams come in groups of five or six and they are also assigned to a group of four or five Red Fountain heroes. In addition, fairy teams are assigned to a trio of Cloudtower witches, also as opposition. These will be your allies. You will all be receiving files on the groups- fairy, hero, and witch alike- that you have been assigned to," the headmaster explained as papers magically flew from the stage into each warlocks hands. "They shouldn't be any different from last year, but if you have any questions, figure it out."

He laughed nastily, as did the rest of the auditorium, and then dismissed all returning students to go unpack in their dorms. As they were walking back, Marin groaned loudly after reading the files they were given.

"We got the Magix Club again," the water warlock said disappointedly.

"It's the same every year," Electro pointed out.

Marin shrugged and said, "I can dare to dream."

A warlock with green hair styled in an All-American swoop who none of them had ever seen before came up to them and said, "You guys are so lucky. The Magix Club is super hot. Wanna trade?"

"Hot?" Aidan asked incredulously. "You need to get your eyes checked, Greenie. While you're at it, get a better haircut. You look like a Red Fountain jock, not a Murmire warlock."

They all cracked up laughing, leaving the strange boy confused as they continued toward their dorm.

"I can't believe that guy thought the Magix Club is hot," Ray said once they finally reached their dorm. "As if. They are most unattractive girls on the planet."

"True," Marin said, collapsing onto the couch by the door. "It's so unfair that we get stuck with them and their stupid heroes every year."

"The witches are cool though," Thorn said as he wandered into the kitchen.

"I guess," Ray added, pulling his blond hair into a small man bun on the back of his head. "Jan's kind of annoying, but Alexandra's cool."

"Char's a bit of a loose screw," Marin added.

"Still better than the Magix Club," Reed commented as he walked by into his room.

"I hear Darkwin's going to add their wizards to the whole group assignment thing," Electro said.

"Ew, seriously?" Ray asked.

The technophile checked the files and replied, "Yeah, but apparently not this year. They're definitely thinking about doing it later on though."

"Gross," Aidan said as he finished unpacking his things and walked back into the common room. "I hate wizards. They're good guys with magic. It's like heroes and fairies _combined_."

The warlocks all took a second to shudder at the thought before they all continued unpacking their stuff. Aidan, who had finished first, took a seat on the couch and started thumbing through the files. He checked the witches first.

They had a group of witches who liked to call themselves the Coven Grimm. It was common for the teams to come up with names for themselves. The first file had a picture of a familiar monster-ish face with chubby cheeks, Asian eyes, and a feral grin. She had miles of wild black hair that made her look like one of those kids who gets lost in the woods and ends up raised by dogs. Her name was Charybdis and she was the Witch of the Void. If he recalled correctly, her mother was a member of some royal court, maybe Cosmosia or Solaria. She was as stupid as she was powerful and as ruthless as she was ugly. Aidan considered her a close friend.

The second in the trio was actually someone he had known for a long time. Alexandra, a witch of gemstones, was one of the many princesses of Isis, one of Eraklyon's moons. Her mother was a vicious queen, a loyal ally, and a formidable enemy to the Eraklyonite throne depending on the time of year. His mother never liked her very much, but his mother didn't like a lot of people. Mom had lots of enemies. Anyway, Alexandra was a beautiful and seductive witch who made up for her weak powers by using her cunning and lack of ethical restraint to win. Aidan never wanted to be on her bad side.

Lastly, the leader of the trio was Janus, the most toxic person he had ever met. Her powers over passageways were pretty unassuming, but she used her domineering and self-consumed perspective to drag herself to the top. She was average in beauty, power, wit, and overall personality. Her hair was blonde, her eyes were blue, her skin was tan, and her body was a perfect hourglass. Despite this, everything about her was lackluster, from her bad jokes to her weird obsessions. Out of them all, Aidan liked her the least, but at least they had a common enemy.

Speaking of enemies, Aidan flipped past the Heroes to the fairy section. The Magix Club (a.k.a. the bane of his existence) was a group of fairies who somehow all wanted to be guardian fairies. Other warlocks got assigned to fairy godmothers or fairy princesses or if they were lucky, fairy damsels. But, nooooooo. Aidan had to be assigned to a group of girls who wanted to use their magic rainbow powers to rid the world of all evil and replace it with goodness and sparkles. Remarkably, they could even hold their own against the warlocks. Aidan flipped through their profiles with disdain.

The first picture was of chubby cheeks, Asian eyes, and a sweet smile framed by a black scattered bob and blunt bangs. Sound familiar? That's because it is. Charybdis's twin sister Scylla was a fairy of constellations and obnoxiously uptight with a stick so far up her ass she would need serious intrusive surgery to have it removed. Unfortunately for him, she was also incredibly smart and as confident as any woman of the Solarian Royal Court would be. Oh, wait! Now he remembers who her mom is! It's Lady Chimera of Solaria. He had always respected her for breaking the glass ceiling of Solaria, although by shady means. Her daughter was not as cool.

He flipped the page to a picture of a brown girl with round brown eyes and a hooked nose. Her name was Nell Digby and she was from Earth for some reason. Gardenia, actually, which was also where Aidan's mother was raised. He assumed it was sort of the same situation. Anyway, she was the fairy of air- boring, I know- and she had a pretty bland personality. No dark secrets, no hidden past. She was a squeaky clean as you could be. It gave him the creeps.

The next page had another familiar picture of a girl he had known for many, many years. Ruby was Alexandra's younger half-sister and another of the ridiculous amount of princesses that came from Isis. She was just as prissy as her mother Diaspro with the same power over gemstones, but that was where the resemblance stopped. Ruby had ruby red curls that she kept in childish pigtails and big brown eyes set in light brown skin. Unlike her mother, Ruby only ever played by the rules. She was so black and white, believing that the law was right and everything else was wrong. Unfortunately for them, Aidan and his friends fell into the everything else category.

The following fairy was Skye, daughter of Stormy. I know, right? How can such an awesome villain give birth to such a lame hero? Skye looked exactly like her mother with fair skin, sea-green eyes, and frizzy purple hair that she kept pinned behind her head in a half-up half-down, but other than that, they were nothing alike. Skye was an archetypical teenage girl who only ever thought about two things: boys and shopping. It was ridiculous that someone with such an awe-inspiring power over a force of nature, the weather, should also be so weak and girly. It blew his mind.

The second-to-last picture was Ebony or, as she prefers to go by, Bonnie. Bonnie was the daughter of Darcy, another famous member of the Trix, but she did not at all act like it. The shy, quiet girl liked to work in the shadow of her teammates and hated taking the spotlight, which sort of makes sense considering her powers but still. She was so mousy and boring. The only thing interesting about her was her dewy purple eyes set in her dark black skin. Sure, she was pretty, but personality-wise, she was way too shy and way too sweet.

Very lastly was the leader, Snow, Fairy of Ice. Her little white face stared up at him from the page, taunting him with that stupid smile. Her fluffy hair was as white as her skin which was as white as snow which was her namesake and power. This was the one that stumped him. How could Icy, Mistress of Evil and Queen of Ice, give birth to such a goody-goody, hearts-and-sparkles fairy? She was just so, so, UGH. If there was one person in the entire world that he absolutely _hated_ , it was Snow.

"Aidan, you good?" Thorn asked, sitting down on the couch next to the pyromancer. He joked, "What did that paper ever do to you?"

Aidan threw the file on the table in frustration. "It's nothing. Just these fucking fairies. I don't understand why we had to get the most annoying fairies ever. Like, why did we have to get crime-fighting fairies?"

Thorn laughed. "I don't know if they're the most annoying. I hear our moms were pretty annoying in their day. Always saving the world and shit."

Aidan rolled his eyes. "Other than the Winx Club, the Magix Club are the most annoying fairies."

"Hey, don't talk shit about my mom like that," Marin said with a laugh as he walked into the common room. All the boys laughed with him.

"Well, Cabal Knights," Aidan addressed the warlocks as the laughter died down, "let's find some fairies and start some shit."

* * *

 **So this is Phase 2. The Winx all have kids at the same time who start a club. Yay! Yeah, so I would appreciate a shitload of input for this first chapter. If you're going to review, answer this quick survey:**

 **There's a lot of characters. Would you like a character chart next chapter?**

 **What's your opinion on each boy so far?**

 **What do you think of the plot? Is it too out there or a refreshing twist?**

 **Obviously, this will be difficult to answer in only the prologue, so I get it if the answers are flimsy. I appreciate your cooperation either way. Also, take the poll on my profile page, pretty please.**

 **Love, Ru😘**


	2. TFTL: Murder the First

**Due to popular demand, I have a character list at the bottom of the chapter. Here's where we meet the girls and stuff gets serious.**

* * *

 _'Poor old Jim's white as a ghost_

 _He's found the answer that we lost'_

 _\- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds_

Snow rolled her eyes. She's been doing that a lot lately.

"You'd be lying if you said you've never thought about it before," Skye said as they flew over Magix City. All five fairies gave her a look of disgust.

"With lowlifes like them?" Ruby said with a sneer, curling one of her short red pigtails around her finger. "I would never."

"I don't know," Skye shrugged, doing a loop-de-loop in the sky. "Ray's kind of cute."

"Sure, if you're into sociopaths," Scylla snorted from the back of their little flying formation.

"Maybe I am," Skye huffed, crossing her arms. She stopped to hover and brought the whole formation to a standstill. "Who knows? That could be the exact kind of boy I'm looking for. Or Aidan. Damn, those biceps are delicious."

"Ew," the girls all chorused, looking at their frizzy-haired friend with disgust.

"Do you realize," Nell said slowly as if she were speaking to a child, "that you are talking about a boy who has once tried to burn you alive?"

The weather fairy huffed, "I could be into that."

Snow rolled her eyes again and said, "Guys, we need to focus. This is the first practice mission of the school year. If we want to get assigned to a real mission, we have to perform well on this one. Got it?"

The rest of the fairies looked down like chastised children before reforming their flying formation and zooming ahead towards Magix City.

Snow was practically bursting with excitement. If there was one thing she loved, it was missions. The adrenaline in her veins, the magic at her fingertips, and the wind in her wings were the recipe for a perfect day in her opinion.

"Look, there's the coffee shop," Snow said, pointing to a quaint little building on the edge of town. "We can stop there to look over the information they gave us."

The six fairies landed in front of the coffee shop and detransformed on the sidewalk. They slid into a booth in the corner and ordered their drinks before pulling out the files they had been giving at orientation that morning.

"Looks like we're assigned to the Coven Grimm and the Cabal Knights again," Scylla complained after analyzing the files in her folder.

Bonnie pulled out her own files and flipped to the Red Fountain section. Pointing to a familiar picture, she said, "At least we have the same heroes as last year."

"Yes. Thank goodness for my brother and his hero brigade," Snow said sarcastically.

"Cut Winter some slack," Skye told her friend. "He's just trying to be a good big brother."

Nell rolled her eyes. "You're only saying that because you think he's cute."

The girls burst out laughing while Skye turned bright red and started gaping like a fish. A few patrons of the coffee shop turned to look at the rude teenagers as they fell over each other in laughter. Once the laughter died down, Snow cleared her throat and said, "Okay, gross, but anyway... we need to check out this mission file."

Putting aside the group assignment file, Snow pulled out another file, this time in a bright pink folder with the words Mission Folder written on it in glitter letters.

The girls all turned their focus to the paper detailing what their first practice mission would be, so they failed to notice the six dark shadows that manifested in an alleyway across the street from the coffee shop.

"Why do they laugh so much?" Ray commented in disdain as they surveyed the fairies in the coffee shop from across the street.

"I don't know, but it's disgusting," Marin answered.

"At least the heroes aren't here," Aidan said. "I hate those guys."

"Guys, look," Thorn said, pointing to the coffee shop.

All the patrons were flooding out into the street, including the shop owners. The glow of the Magix Club's transformation could be seen from all the way in the alley. A crowd formed around the coffee shop as the shop owners blocked the door to keep everyone out.

"What was their mission?" Electro thought out loud, his brain rushing to piece it together. "Some sort of evacuation practice? Wait. They're calling the police. Something isn't right."

"Let's go check it out," Aidan said. With a flash of light, the Cabal Knights disappeared from the alley and reappeared in the coffee shop.

The six warlocks took in their surroundings as the six fairies screamed and flew up into the air in shock.

"Where did you come from?" Snow accused once she regained her wits.

Aidan smiled, "My mom's va-"

"Don't finish that sentence!" Ruby shrieked, covering her ears.

Thorn chuckled at the fairy, making the other Cabal Knights laugh as well. They all split up to torture their own fairy. You know what they say- divide and conquer.

"Can you go away? For, like, ever?"

Aidan smirked at the snow fairy hovering over him, arms crossed and pink lips twisted in a pretty pout. The self-proclaimed leader of the Magix Club, Snow was as pathetic as her cutesy name implied. Everything about her drove him insane, especially her hair. It was fluffy and white, like the snow for which she was named, and fell down her back in loose curls that made her look entirely too angelic for the hellion he knew her to be.

"But this is an assignment for class," Aidan said, smiling devilishly at the pale vision floating over him. "You know how much I value my education, Snow."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and saying, "Oh, please. You? As if you value anything other than the pursuit of evil."

He smiled again, sharing a look with Thorn behind her. He was pestering Ruby, the upstanding citizen of the group; the redheaded fairy didn't realize that the nature warlock was backing her up into a chair. Scanning his eyes around the room, Aidan took in the familiar sight of the other Knights doing the same as Thorn, each singling out a fairy and bothering her to no end.

His eyes landed on Marin and Reed who were teaming up on Skye, the bubbly weather fairy with the especially brutal right hook. He almost started to grin when he realized that one fairy was going unbothered. His eyes swiveled around the now-emptied coffee shop looking for the odd girl out when Snow cleared her throat and drew his attention away from the issue at hand.

"I think you can take one day off, considering your spotless record of messing with us without fail. Your mother must be so proud," she snarked, eyes darting nervously to the Employees Only door behind the counter. Bingo.

He shrugged, turning back to Snow while discreetly signaling to Reed about the door. The youngest warlock nodded and started slinking his way towards the counter. Aidan focused on distracting Snow.

"You'd think she would be, but Mom only cares about stupid things like saving the world and ruling Eraklyon," Aidan said, walking around Snow so that she had to turn her back to the door Reed was slowly creeping towards. The fairy didn't even notice anything was wrong.

Snow gave him a withering look.

"Oh, poor baby. Mommy isn't proud of her evil little warlock? It must be so hard."

Aidan ignored the unexpected sting of her voicing his thoughts aloud, choosing to turn the sting against her instead.

"Not that you'd know what that's like, what with mother dearest supporting you wholeheartedly in all your little heroic adventures," he spat sarcastically, sounding angrier than he had intended. "Icy must be so proud of her holy little angel, seeing as she's such an up-and-up hero herself. Oh, wait, nevermind. She's a witch."

Her blue eyes flashed and she leaned over in the air so that their faces were only inches apart and he could feel her fluffy white curls spilling over her shoulders brushing against his cheek.

"Don't you dare ever talk about my mother," she seethed through gritted teeth.

He crossed his arms and hardened his gaze, holding an intense staring contest that heated the air around them.

"Then don't ever talk about mine."

They held steely eye contact for a few more minutes before a shriek followed by a shout sent them flying away from each other.

The group of teens in the coffee shop all turned towards the doorway that Reed was standing in, hand over his mouth and eyes wide as saucers.

The other teenagers in the room ran to the door as quickly as possible. What they saw was burned into their minds forever.

Scylla was kneeling on the floor next to a man wearing an apron bearing the coffee shop's logo laying sprawled on the floor with blood flowing from the gash in his neck and tears streaming from his open, unseeing eyes. To his left, Aidan heard Marin gasp in horror. He couldn't blame him. Something truly evil happened in this room, he could feel it in the air and in his bones. It made all the shadows look darker and the air coming from the A/C much colder.

"You were supposed to keep them out until the authorities arrived," Scylla said shakily, looking very overwhelmed and very angry. Her pale hands were covered with blood. She had obviously tried to stop the flow before she realized he was... dead. Oh my Dragon, he's dead.

"Holy fuck," Aidan said, taking in the scene before him. "Was this part of your practice mission? That is _so_ messed up. And that's coming from me."

"This isn't a mission, blockhead," Snow said, turning to the redhead with a manic glare. The panicked frenzy in her blue orbs scared the crap out of him, although he'd never admit that. He noticed the way she was frantically avoiding looking at the dead body. He'd never seen her like this.

"I need to step out," Skye said, covering her mouth and flying to the bathroom at top speed.

"Where are the police? Where the hell are the police?" Nell repeated over and over again as she paced in the air.

"Wow, you guys really can't handle pressure," Ray said, looking to Bonnie with concern. She was actually crying, but honestly, Reed looked like he was about to cry too. Aidan wasn't judging. This freaked him the hell out.

"Guys, we need to get out of here," he said, walking out of the Employees Only room and into the shop. "We're warlocks. They're gonna think it was us. We gotta go."

"No!" Snow said suddenly, clutching his arm. "You can't leave!"

Aidan yanked his arm out of her surprisingly strong grasp and asked, "What's your problem? You're Alfea fairies. You won't get in any trouble. Chill out."

"This isn't about that, you idiot!" she shouted, hovering over him again. "There is a dead body on the other side of that door and we are all witnesses."

Aidan shrugged away from her as she made a mad reach for his arm again.

"Not my problem. Cabal Knights, let's go."

"Guys..." Scylla called warily from inside the room. "Something's happening."

Everyone made their way back to the room where Scylla was still kneeling next to the dead man in horror with Reed still standing behind her, just as wide-eyed and terrified as he had been when he found her. All eyes were fixed on the body, however. As the fairies and warlocks watched, the tear tracks coming from the dead man's eyes started to flow more heavily until water encased his entire body and spread onto the floor. Reed quickly grabbed Scylla by the shoulders and yanked her off the ground. The water kept spreading until it wrapped around the man entirely and then it started shrinking. The body started to disappear before their very eyes and before they knew it, all that was left of him was a teardrop on the ground and the blood on Scylla's hands.

That's when the police showed up.

What happened next was a blur of questions and interrogations but finally, once the sun began to set, they determined that neither the Magix Club nor the Cabal Knights were guilty.

"What now?" Snow asked the group once they were finally allowed to leave the coffee shop.

"Nothing," Aidan answered. "We forget this ever happened and move on."

"We can't just ignore this," Nell said, crossing her tanned arms over her chest. It was wrapped in sparkly yellow fabric and somehow over the course of the day, she had stained it with blood. Aidan wondered if it would be there the next time she transformed into her Winx form or if magic worked the same way as bleach. "We are the only people who saw what happened in that back room. If another murder like this happens and we haven't done anything about this, that blood will be on our hands."

Aidan noticed out of the corner of his eye the way that Scylla stared down at her hands as if she could still see the blood that she had washed off. Now that they weren't soaked with red bodily fluids, he could see that sometime over the summer Scylla had begun biting her nails. The black nail polish was making a valiant effort of standing up against her new idiosyncrasy, but apparently, it was no match for her high anxiety levels and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"You can do whatever the hell you want," Electro said, towering over Nell even when she was hovering a few inches off of the ground. "You're not dragging us into this. Have a nice night."

With that, he conjured a swirling green portal to Murmire and took a step through. Marin and Ray immediately followed him. Nell flew away in disgust and Bonnie followed, still sniffling slightly. Ruby turned up her nose at the remaining Knights and followed her friends back to Alfea.

"What the hell just happened?" Skye murmured, putting her head in her hands. She still looked a little sick. Snow placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder before abruptly turning to hover angrily over Aidan again.

"How can you be so cold?" she accused. He decided that now was not the right time to point out that she was the snow fairy and he was the pyromancer, so he just stayed silent. "There are bad guys and there are villains. You're crossing a line."

He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the way her words settled down in his brain and made themselves at home.

"I always knew you were bad, but _evil_? That can't be you."

With those words, she flew away into the night. Skye followed her into the air. Aidan rolled his eyes.

"Like you know who I am," he said, but it was too late and she was too far away to hear him.

Aidan turned around to walk through the portal and noticed Thorn giving him one of his signature looks. It made him feel guilty, but he didn't know why. Aidan glared at the brooding bad boy in hopes that it would filter the effect of his soul-seeing gaze. It didn't; he just felt worse.

Thorn walked through the portal, having been completely unaffected by Aidan's glare, so the redheaded teen went to follow when he remembered to check for Reed. The youngest warlock was easily distracted and got left behind more often than he'd like to admit. Aidan always made sure to check for Reed before leaving.

The magenta-haired warlock was still hovering around Scylla who looked like she would collapse at any moment. The shaky girl was staring at her hands so distraughtly that for a brief second, Aidan actually felt pity. The feeling was soon replaced with annoyance that Reed was holding them up.

"Reed, come on!" he called.

That seemed to pull the traumatized fairy out of her stupor and she realized that everyone else had left. Scylla jumped when she saw that Reed was standing behind her. He smiled sheepishly at having scared her and took a step back. Giving him a small smile and a curt nod, the Solarian lady flew away into the night, leaving Reed behind on the ground.

"Hurry up, Reed!" Aidan called again. The boy in question scurried over to the portal red-faced with his head ducked down. Aidan smirked as Reed jumped through the portal, too embarrassed to look at his leader. His smirk dropped, however, when he felt the unsettling feeling of somebody watching him. He looked back over his shoulder, but all he could see was the tranquil scene of a city asleep. The feeling never left him, even as he disappeared through the portal and reappeared in his dorm in Murmire. It chased him all the way to bed and deep into his dreams.

 _Red._

 _The first thing he noticed was that everything was red. It was dripping down the walls, onto the floor, over chipped black nails, into snow white hair. It was like everything suddenly_ **became** _red. There was a door and four walls, but then water suddenly rushed through the door and the walls were gone and he was drowning._

 _He struggled to stay afloat as heinous laughter filled the not-room. The water tasted coppery on his lips and it was red too. It started to consume him. He was disappearing. It was so fucking cold._

 _A bright light flashed and he was enveloped in flames from head to foot. The warmth drove him upwards until he was face to face with eyes that saw the entire world. He was floating high above Magix and someone else was here with him. It was someone good, he could tell, but he had no idea who yet._

 _"I am yours and you are mine," a voice rumbled from everywhere. The eyes blinked and for a second all light disappeared before they opened again and the warmth returned._

 _"I don't understand. I have to be-"_

 _He cut himself off because he had no idea where he had to be._

 _"This is where you have to be," the voice said. It was coming from somewhere inside of him and it urged him to look down. He could see all five schools of Magix. They were much closer together than he had previously believed._

 _"Who are you?" he asked the eyes because he felt the warmth slowly diminishing as the eyes grew further and further away._

 _"I am yours and you are mine," the voice rumbled again, echoing through the universe and bouncing off of each planet. The blast of sound sent him plummeting back to Magix and back into his own body_ where he awoke in a cold sweat.

Flinging himself out of bed, Aidan took to pacing around the room until the dawn. Three hours later, that's how Thorn found him: sleep-deprived and running grooves into the carpet.

* * *

Aidan spent the rest of the day completely out of it as that weird dream played over and over in his mind. The other boys noticed but didn't say anything about it. He was grateful, though he'd never say it. It wasn't until after school that he got a distraction from the endless loop going on in his head.

"Hey, isn't that the Magix Club?" Marin said, pointing out the window of the record store they were in.

The others all looked out the window and saw the six fairies that they loved to hate walk out of a clothing store with piles of bags on their arms. Ray grinned devilishly.

"Let's go say hi," he suggested, something mischievous in his eyes.

Thorn and Aidan shared an uncertain look as they recalled what happened yesterday, but Ray was out the door before they could stop him.

"Lookie who it is," Ray said when he reached the girls. All six of them whipped around in unison to give the Knights a look of disgust like a group of synchronized swimmer Barbie dolls that were simultaneously catcalled by a man old enough to be their father. You get the picture.

"What do you want?" Snow spat brattily at him.

"I just stopped by to say hi," Ray shrugged. He leaned forward to peer into her bags. "What did you buy? Anything expensive?"

Snow yanked her bags away from him and said, "I don't have time for this. We have somewhere to be."

She turned to leave, but Ray caught her elbow and turned her back around. Aidan and Skye tensed at the same time, but he quickly relaxed so no one would notice. Skye took a step forward in case she needed to step in.

"I'm sure you could spare me some of your time," Ray said, leering down at her.

Snow turned bright red, either in anger or embarrassment, and pulled her elbow out of his grasp.

"You're so annoying," she complained. "Get a life and stop butting into mine."

With that, she whipped around and stormed away with the other fairies following close behind.

"What the fuck, man?" Aidan asked as the fairies left. "Was that about?"

Ray turned around laughing. Marin clapped him on the back as the other Knights surrounded him to congratulate him on his victory. The only boy who didn't look amused was Aidan.

"Did you see her face? That was hilarious!"

Aidan pursed his lips and crossed his arms, trying to act indifferent.

"Yeah, whatever. Just next time, don't stoop so low as to flirt with one of those pixies."

"No, dude, that's the beauty of it," Ray explained, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Who knew that being sweet on the girls would get them more twisted up than being sour?"

"We definitely have to try that next time," Electro said with a laugh.

"Oooo, can we make it a tactic?" Reed offered, bouncing on his heels. He was smiling, which Aidan was admittedly glad to see- despite his discontent with Ray's flirting- considering the boy hadn't smiled since… you know.

Electro pulled out one of his gadgets and began excitedly typing away, presumably on another tactic involving flirting with the Magix Club. The boys were all snickering as they made jokes about the girls being prudes or sticks-in-the-mud. Aidan sighed and held back a scowl.

"Fine. Just don't make a habit out of it."

"Oh, lighten up," Thorn laughed, ruffling his hair. Aidan decided that if Thorn, of all people, was telling him to lighten up, then he should probably just forget about it. Still, something about the image of Ray leering down at Snow didn't sit right with him.

Looking across the street, Aidan caught sight of the yellow caution tape crisscrossing over the door of the cafe. A policecraft was parked outside and the owner was talking to a lady in a suit outside of the window. She was writing things down on a clipboard. When she looked up, Aidan recognized her as the fairy that had interviewed them yesterday after the… you know.

He caught her eye and she turned her nose up at them.

"Come on, guys," Thorn said. "Let's get out of here."

"I saw a dumpster outside that restaurant we passed on the way here," Marin suggested. "Wanna start a trash fire?"

"Yeah!" Ray said a little too enthusiastically. The boys hurried to get away from the scene.

Looking back over his shoulder, Aidan made eye contact with the lady again. She glared at him so he glared back and spit onto the sidewalk. With a look of disgust, she turned away and he stormed off to join his friends.

Actually, a dumpster fire was exactly what he needed.

* * *

Every night since the murder, Aidan was plagued with the same nightmare. Very visible bags had taken up residence under his eyes that ran as deep as the valleys he had run into the carpet with all of his insomniatic pacing. The Cabal Knights were starting to get concerned, but he'd be damned if he let any of them fuss over him. Any suggestions to visit the nurse or take it easy were quickly silenced with a harsh look from his blue eyes and a stern set of his bushy red eyebrows. By Friday night, however, he was ready to agree that the nightmares were too much.

That night he found himself out on the balcony, contemplating the meaning of the little he could remember from his dreams, like the blood and the fire and the eyes. Peering out into the night, he was surprised to see a blur of white flying in the woods. He was glad that the one class he hadn't fallen asleep in on Wednesday was teleportation and he used the newly-learned spell to teleport himself into the woods.

When he reappeared in the woods, he saw a girl in a white nightgown. She turned around and he immediately knew who it was, more so from the wide and panicked blue eyes than the white light she had summoned to her pale fingers in defense.

"Snow?" Aidan asked. "What are you doing out here?"

She just held up her hands in frenetic defense of herself. He immediately lit his hands on fire in case this was going to become a battle, but he knew in the back of his mind that he was in no shape to be fighting. Taking a closer look, he noticed that she wasn't in any shape to be fighting either. The same dark marks that sat under his eyes adorned hers. She was looking up at him from the other side of the clearing like a caged animal. The shadows of the tree branches crisscrossing her body made her look paler and more animalistic. Knowing he was probably going out on a limb, he asked, "Are you having nightmares too?"

"What? How did you know about my nightmares?" she asked, voice ragged and scared. She held up her hands again. Whatever was going on, Snow was seriously off her game.

"I'm having them too," he answered cautiously, taking a step towards her and extinguishing himself so as not to scare her. She looked up at him curiously, fear suddenly replaced by an eerie calm. "Snow, what are you doing out here?"

"I can't... I can't... I can't..." she searched for the right words as her eyes bore into his like he was a stranger she was seeing for the first time. "I can't sleep. I don't know what- what- what it means or why or... Where am I?"

For some reason, Snow didn't recognize him or register how much danger she was really in by being alone with him, her sworn enemy, and for that reason, he decided that he wouldn't take advantage of her by setting her hair on fire or something like that. No matter how much he wanted to. The vacant look in her eyes was enough to make him want to get her some sleep and as soon as possible. Plus, torturing her was no fun when she was in an altered state of consciousness.

"Let me take you home," he said, hating himself for helping the one person he hates most in the world. But right now, she really wasn't herself so it didn't really count.

The snow fairy trustingly lifted her hand and let him lead her out of the woods. He felt strange holding hands with her as a hot feeling ran its way down his arm to curl up in his palm where his freckled skin met her pale skin. It left behind a feeling of pins and needles coupled with searing heat. She immediately yanked her hand out of his like she'd been burned.

"Sorry," he muttered, staring at his hand where the sensation was already fading.

Snow tentatively reached out for his hand again, so he pushed the thought away and conjured a portal to Alfea, relieved that the same feeling didn't occur when their hands touched again. Slowly walking her through the portal, he snuck his way past the barrier and stood with her directly under her balcony. He knew where her dorm was because one time he and Ray snuck in and changed all their shampoo to green hair dye.

He noticed the irony that the last time he had been here had been with malicious intent and now he was escorting her home, but he ignored it. Holding her like the superheroes hold the damsels in his mom's stupid Earth movies, Aidan used his fire to propel them both up to the balcony. It was something he had only learned to do recently and thankfully he didn't propel them straight into the wall. They touched down gently on the pink balcony and she removed her hand from his, the memory of the hot sensation lingering in both of their palms.

He turned to leave when she grabbed his hand. The heat returned full force and a blinding light through them apart to different sides of the balcony. Rubbing his head gingerly and righting himself, he asked, "What the hell was that?"

She looked even more dazed than before.

"I don't know."

"Snow, you should really get some sleep," he said. "You're being really weird."

She nodded and opened the balcony door, turning to retreat into her dorm. She turned back to say something when she was cut off by a blood-curdling scream.

"What the fuck was that?!"

Snow waved it off dismissively and explained indifferently, "That's just Scylla. She's been doing that every night since the... you know."

Aidan nodded in understanding. He didn't like talking about it either.

"Anyway, the girls will be up in a second and Skye will be complaining about it disrupting her beauty sleep."

She sounded bitter, but he knew she was a little difficult to read in her current state so he didn't look too far into it. He did notice that some sentience had returned to her eyes and she sort of looked like she recognized him.

"I guess that means I should get going," he said more awkwardly than he would have liked. It felt too much like the end of a date, which, considering all that had happened, was not what he should have been concerned about. Still, he felt like he needed to go vandalize a draconary or a soup kitchen or something to feel badass again.

He took a step back, ready to just about throw himself off of the balcony and beg the earth to swallow him whole, when she turned back quickly and said, "Um, I know I'm super out of it, but thanks for helping me out and stuff."

"Don't mention it."

She gave him a small smile.

"No, seriously. Don't mention it," he emphasized. "I don't want anyone knowing about this."

She scowled, but it lost its effect with her eyes still maintaining that vacant look. Without another word, she disappeared into her dorm and hopefully off to bed. Looking back over his shoulder once, Aidan conjured up a portal and crawled back into his own bed. He was going to take another crack at going to sleep. It hadn't worked so far, but hey, maybe the sixth time's the charm.

* * *

 **Because you asked, here's the folks:**

 **./~\\.**

 **Cabal Knights (a.k.a. the evil warlock sons of the Winx Club):**

 **Aidan: redheaded leader, warlock of the Dragon Flame, just wants to set things on fire and sleep- Bloom**

 **Thorn: guyliner-ed right-hand man, warlock of Nature, pretends he has a Tragic Backstory™ but actually had the best childhood and homelife but whatever- Flora**

 **Ray: sunburnt sociopath, warlock of the Scorching Sun, a puppy but in human form- Stella**

 **Marin: hunky attention whore, warlock of Sea Storms, rebellious for attention and sexy just because- Aisha**

 **Electro: too tall techie, warlock of Viruses, thought to be soulless (i mean, he** _ **is**_ **a ginger) but is actually just a bastard- Tecna**

 **Reed: attention-deficit smol bean, warlock of Dissonance, listens to bad music and fears decision-making- Musa**

 **./~\\.**

 **Magix Club (a.k.a. the pure fairy daughters of all those bitches we hated from Seasons 1-3)**

 **Snow: bossy angelchild, fairy of Snow, here to Prove Herself as a good fairy and leader and Start Fights with forces of evil- Icy**

 **Skye: skinny valley girl, fairy of Weather, the definition of preppy as according to Tara Gilesbie's Dictionary and will 100% fight a bitch- Stormy**

 **Bonnie: purple-eyed sweetheart, fairy of Darkness, is scared of the dark and literally everything else- Darcy**

 **Ruby: short narc, fairy of Gems, follow the law? she is the law. laces can't get any straighter than this- Diaspro**

 **Nell: lanky earthling, fairy of Air, has never told a lie and only wants to hug everybody and maybe meet her bio parents- Mitzi**

 **Scylla: bob-headed dork, fairy of Constellations, has read all the books and keeps her pens in straight lines alphabetically by manufacturer- Chimera**

 **./~\\.**

 **Anyway, I hope you love them as much as I do.**

 **Love, Ru**


End file.
